Ana Puga, MD, Pediatric Infectious Disease

Biography

Currently, Dr. Ana M Puga is Regional Medical Director for the Southern U.S. region with ViiV Healthcare. She is responsible for providing scientific and medical expertise for ViiV initiatives, including ViiV-sponsored clinical trials and ViiV patient access and HIV care continuum programs. She joins Care Resource to maintain her clinical practice and provide continuity of care for patients. Dr. Puga’s clinical practice focuses on ensuring zero transmissions from mother to child in Broward and delivering effective treatment, PrEP and prevention is in place for children, youth and young adults who are at risk or infected by HIV. Dr. Puga received her medical training at Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico. She also completed her residency in Pediatrics and fellowship in Infectious Diseases as well as a postgraduate NIH research fellowship in HIV at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami, Florida.

Dr. Puga is trained in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and has been responsible for the care of almost 800 HIV positive women and 250 HIV exposed and/or infected infants, children and youth through 24 as medical director of the Comprehensive Family AIDS Program (CFAP) of the Children’s Diagnostic & Treatment Center, Inc. located in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. She held this position from 1996 to 2017. Through her commitment to the care and treatment for these families, Dr. Puga has provided educational opportunities for preceptorships, training and AIDS education to many professionals in both Broward and West Palm Beach Counties, as well as throughout the country.

Her work in the CFAP program is to ensure the integration of a multidisciplinary system by promoting the incorporation of medical care, social services, mental health therapy, substance abuse treatment, and dental care to over 1300 families with HIV in Broward County. Dr. Puga has been a consultant for the Florida/Caribbean AIDS Educational Training Center (AETC) and regularly provides consultations for area healthcare providers on the care of HIV exposed infants and HIV at-risk children and youth, to ensure the healthiest outcomes possible. Also, Dr. Puga provides HIV perinatal medication counseling to all pregnant HIV positive women referred from both of Broward County’s prenatal care centers and from private Obstetricians throughout Broward County.

Dr. Puga is the Principal Investigator of more than 40 International Maternal-Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials protocols, Adolescent Trials Network studies, and the Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study Project. She is active in many leadership committees or protocol teams with these networks, including being on the Scientific Executive Committee of the CDC’s Legacy Project. Dr. Puga also sits on the National HIV Quality Advisory Committee. She has had several publications from her research efforts.

Dr. Puga has successfully written HRSA and NIH grants since 1998, with project funding over two million dollars annually. Dr. Puga holds academic positions at FIU and FAU, providing medical student and resident education in HIV, Research, and Adolescent Medicine. Additionally, Dr. Puga is successful in many fundraising efforts at the Center and actively involved in the CDTC Transformers, a professional philanthropic group that gives back to children with special healthcare needs.

She has presented nationally and internationally to promote education on behalf of perinatally HIV infected children and adolescents. A very special yearly event for Dr. Ana Puga is Camp Hope. She travels with and medically supervises at least 50 children with HIV/AIDS to a sleep away camp located near Houston, Texas. The children have fun, find new friends, make lasting and sometimes life-sustaining memo­ries, but most of all, are with other children who are just like them. In 2004, Dr. Puga was the Keynote Speaker at the Congressional Summit on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.

Dr. Puga received the 2006 United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) Unsung Hero Award for HIV/AIDS Physician. In 2007, she received the Spirit of Hope Physician Award from Broward House and was honored as the 2009 Mother of the Year by the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Broward County, Florida. Dr. Puga received the Community Foundation of Broward’s first Dr. Gary E Morey Memorial Award in 2012 and was recognized as Broward County’s 2011 Community Healthcare Pioneer by the Florida Department of Health. In 2013, Dr. Puga was featured in Lauderdale magazine as “Doctor with a Cause”. In 2014, she received the Broward County Hispanic Woman of Distinction Award and is being honored for her commitment to the end of HIV and AIDS by the World AIDS Museum.

Dr. Puga is trained in Level 1 Reiki and is also trained as a Conscious Breath worker and incorporates these healing practices to help her patients in their healing process. She volunteers as co-medical director of the Smart Ride, an AIDS fundraising bike ride from Miami to Key West that contributes 100% of the money raised to support 7 HIV care agencies in Florida.

Dr. Puga is fluent in both English and Spanish. Dr. Puga lives on Fort Lauderdale Beach with her partner and she enjoys spoiling her niece, nephew and three godsons as well as boating and fishing in the Keys, listening to Jimmy Buffett, traveling, and gourmet cooking for friends and family.